Corporate Responsibility Through Preventative Healthcare

Enabling corporate responsibility is our duty as anyone who services the corporate world… third party advisors, HROs and yes, corporate wellness providers. We lead people to healthier, happier more productive lives, fulfilling on many levels a large part of corporate responsibility. Connecting employee health to larger societal health is vital. We all know the studies, healthy employees are more productive, less absenteeism and presenteeism. … As a company develops a more holistic understanding of how health and wellness are linked to other important social and environmental challenges, and business challenges, it creates an awakening to the many intricacies and facets of employee health. Where many corporate health models sabotage their own success – is weak follow through.

Our current model of healthcare is sick care, and sadly, employers are drowning by following this same path. Health care dollars are usurped from a reactive, episodic acute care model, and of course the long term needs and dollars of chronic care. We can find different dollar values thrown around, depending on which of the thousands of costs are being tallied, but suffice it to say chronic care costs, between care and lost productivity hundreds of billions yearly.

The massive opportunity for the health of society and our economy:

Preventive healthcare

Leading healthier lives (which is a sweeping statement) and stopping the onset of illness is the holy grail of healthcare transformation and sustainability. It is the ultimate investment companies can make. We all agree we are only as strong, resilient and energized as our people.

In terms of corporate health, the model of preventive care can be further defined for implementation and precision:

•Proactive care solutions: Providing solid, science based knowledge of healthier living, helping employees with implementation, adherence, provides a health centric motivating environment to respect the endless value of health. A proactive approach also ensures that preventive action is taken to intervene well before the onset of symptoms, far before illness. Proactive health should not be confused with diagnostics, which are a part of proactive health, but certainly not the only aspect of a proactive process.

•Predictive care solutions leverage cutting-edge health technologies and sophisticated gathering of data to not only stratify risk, but even predict risk and intervene even further upstream. This can be done through effective health risk assessments (HRA), metrics and reporting from the proactive tools. Predictive care solutions available and are a lost opportunity for health when not implemented. With the increased collection of personal health and lifestyle data and improved analytics, we can generate accurate insights earlier. This allows us to anticipate issues, pinpointing where behavioural intervention is needed and provide actions to take before risk factors even arise.

NCD: Non-infectious and non-transmissible diseases that may be caused by genetic or

Breakdown NCD: Courtesy World Economic Forum

behavioral factors and generally have a slow progression (could have been incubating for years in which hopefully identified and prevented) and long duration. These include cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes. According to the CDC, 80% of chronic illness is lifestyle, behavioral, however, people need to be made aware of what many of these behaviors and exposures are.

According to a study released in 2011 by the World Economic Forum, Harvard School of Public Health “The U.S. Government and Global Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Efforts”:

NCDs are the leading causes of death and disability globally, killing more than three in five people worldwide and responsible for nearly half of the global burden of disease.

Among the leading causes of preventable illness and related disability

NCDs are responsible for 3.9 million deaths each year in the Region of the Americas, representing 3⁄4 of all deaths.

An estimated 200 million people in the Americas are living with NCDs, which has a tremendous impact on their life, well-being, and ability to work. This, in turn, poses major challenges to the economy, the health system and other sectors of society.

If modifiable risk factors (behavioral) were eliminated, 80% of all heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes would be prevented and over 40% of cancer would be prevented.

The causes of NCDs and their risk factors are largely determined by the social, physical and economic environment. Thus, combating NCDs requires action on the social determinants in a person’s environment, not just healthcare. Creating healthy environments and making healthy choices available and known, are critical.

Conclusion from World Economic Forum study on Non Communicable Diseases:

A final thought: Economic policy-makers are naturally concerned about economic growth. The evidence presented in this report indicates that it would be illogical and irresponsible to care about economic growth and simultaneously ignore NCDs. Interventions in this area will undeniably be costly. But inaction is likely to be far more costly.”

Corporate wellness programs are potentially an affordable, very effective way to reduce the economic, personal and social burden of illness. Shifting to a preventive paradigm requires a holistic and employee-centred approach that involves participation and dedication from employers and employees. Again, we need to provide programs that

Implementation – providing employees the guidance for adherence, work/life integration, organization and time

Is inclusive of family support

Incentivize the employee for participation in a manner that is supportive of the employee’s health efforts and the health centric environment of the company

It HAS to be fun, invigorating, encouraging…not another miserable obligation and time demand in the employee’s life

Follow the hard science. A number of vague studies have been released stating that proactive health and wellness programs do not really impact the corporate bottom line. Where these myopic snapshot falls short…. …what are they measuring? Do they have an accurate, measurable value, scientific means of data collection as to illnesses that were prevented? Were they categorizing all corporate wellness initiatives into one lump? What were the measures of adherence? For these studies to deny the impact of preventative health education and implementation, is to deny greater studies lead by global health researchers and organizations….. Science proves that a strong proactive model for health which preempts illness, acute and chronic, is vital for health and economics.

World Health Organization on Corporate Responsibility:

Courtesy World Health Organization

“The workplace directly influences the physical, mental, economic and social well-being of workers and in turn the health of their families, communities and society. It offers an ideal setting and infrastructure to support the promotion of health of a large audience. The health of workers is also affected by non-work related factors.”

“A health-promoting workplace recognizes that a healthy workforce is essential and integrates policies, systems and practices conducive to health at all levels of the organization. Rather than a series of projects, workforce health promotion is an ongoing process for improving work and health.”

Providing health information is a start, but only a start. Corporate responsibility affects: shareholders, customers, suppliers, employees and their families, communities, financiers, society…..and of course their own survival. The impact of health is omnipotent.

Corporate Responsibility with Health….Best In Corporate Health

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